He's been slow in all off-season testing. 10th is not a surprise. Fwiw I don't think he's ever recovered from the shoulder and broken leg. Happens to all athletes eventually. Rossi fans are finding it hard to accept, in the same way that Montana fans felt, even when he played for Kansas City.
Some help ? ART, what motor and what country is the bike made ? Suter, " "BMW , Edwards FTR " " BQR-FTR " " IODA " "Aprilla , tube frame wonder, Petrucci With pic's , specs and riders if you can.
Harsh, but I pretty much agree with all of that. Meanwhile Stoner just kinda shows up after laying low in the off season and goes back to business as usual...he's just not as fun to like, but man, the numbers just never lie. 1. Stoner (after he passes Pedro who gets a better start). 2. Ben (working his way up from 8th while everyone's tires were fading) 3. Lorenzo (was owning Ben until his tires went away) 4. Pedro (had a 2 sec lead but faded the entire race) 5. Hayden (catches Pedro in the last 2 laps because he CAN ride on crap tires) 6. RdP (followed shortly by...) 7. Rossi (terrible start, struggling with setup the entire time but can still spank the CRT's) 10. Dovi (was as high as 5th but then couldn't ride the tires) 14. Edwards (will be quoted "We ran over a cobra and I'm jus' used to seeing rattlesnakes") *basically the weekend theme is getting a good start and being able to ride on fading tires If it rains :huh?
I think of Nickys place in practice as being what Rossi is capable of in the race. Typically Nikcy can't match his practice position in the race, but Rossi can even though his practice time was 5 positions worse. Weird but true.
ART - Aprilia Racing Team. Some say that the Aprilia ART is a factory bike in sheep's clothing. Suter - Swiss frame builder FTR - British frame builder IODA - Italian frame builder. Don't have much time for pics and specs but you can find a lot of info on the Motogp threads in here and on Google.
Top speeds: - Ducati and Honda on top, Yamaha about 10kph behind. - Best CRTs lose about 10kph to Yamahas. Gonna be a hard day for CRT guys looking for a pass if they ever get a chance. Fastest CRT (RdP) was a second slower than slowest prototype. Really hoping that ART can find some to close the gap. Also look for Edwards vs. RdP. Moto2 has really picked up the pace during last 6 months
Additionally as the track becomes less slippery Hayden's relative pace will drop off. He's the ace on slippery tracks.
Yep, it's a dirty track and just 45 min for the session, so Rossi puts on a hard tyre and just rides around on that same tyre for the session, as he says "trying to do a lot of laps in order to understand it (the tyre)." Doesn't mean he won't be 10th still in qualifying, but does help explain why he was 10th Thursday night. His conclusion: "The new tyre is much better for warming up, so good for safety, but it started to slide a lot after some laps and made some of the understeer worse." Report here at the motogp site. Sounds like we may get a bit more interest developing late in races if tyre management becomes a bigger factor, like it used to be.
FP2 HB went 210+mph down the straight. 1STONER C.Repsol Honda Team1:55.960 2LORENZO J.Yamaha Factory Racing+0.214 3DOVIZIOSO A.Monster Yamaha Tech 3+0.688 4SPIES B.Yamaha Factory Racing+0.711 5BARBERA H.Pramac Racing Team+0.718 6PEDROSA D.Repsol Honda Team+0.737 7HAYDEN N.Ducati Team+0.822 8CRUTCHLOW C.Monster Yamaha Tech 3+0.854 9BRADL S.LCR Honda MotoGP+1.237 10ROSSI V.Ducati Team+1.314 11ABRAHAM K.Cardion AB Motoracing+1.598 12BAUTISTA A.San Carlo Honda Gresini+1.708 13DE PUNIET R.Power Electronics Aspar+2.98